


Paws, Play, Relax, Unwind

by JustAnotherBlonde



Category: Naruto
Genre: Akatsuki Gift Exchange 2020, Akatsuki downtime, Cats, Domestic Akatsuki Fluff, Fluff, Tea, playing with cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28193259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherBlonde/pseuds/JustAnotherBlonde
Summary: Sasori returns to the Amegakure hideout alone after a mission, having been separated from Deidara. He finds Pein making tea, meets Konan’s “new recruit,” and attempts to relax, all the while wondering where on earth Deidara could be…Created fortheredheaddevil(Tumblr) for the Akatsuki Gift Exchange 2020
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Akatsuki Gift Exchange, why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	Paws, Play, Relax, Unwind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingerrhd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerrhd/gifts).



It was raining when Sasori returned to the hideout in Amegakure. It was always raining. Last month he had added an extra layer of shellac to his body in order to combat the constant dampness. He preferred missions away to spending time with the other Akatsuki here. He sheltered his small body beneath his wide brimmed hat, but his latest addition—the scorpion tail—was too bulky to remain concealed beneath his robes. He was trying to find a middle ground between monstrous Hiruko and his human-passing puppet body, something unique, impressive, and threatening. But so far the tail was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth.

He leapt up the stairs to the sixth story entrance to the hideout, lifting himself lightly with his chakra and pausing on the balcony to scan the sky for Deidara. They had agreed to meet back at the hideout following their near-failure of a mission.

It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission. Find out what plans the daimyo of the Land of That had for the Land of This. But on the way they had encountered someone with a personal grievance against Akatsuki—not Sasori and Deidara personally, no, it had been someone _else_ who had gone and messed things up in the Land of That. Nevertheless, they had ended up surrounded by a tribe of angry shinobi with a peculiar kekkai genkai that ended up separating Sasori from Deidara as they wove in and out of genjutsu.

Pausing at the door one last time to scan the sky for Deidara on his bird, Sasori sighed and pushed his way inside.

"Sasori, welcome back," Pein's murmur carried across the room. He was seated in the lotus position behind the low tea table near the back of the main room that often served as one of Pein's many desks. The table was clean, for once: no mission reports to read, no weapons to maintain, no miscellaneous objects to sort. All of this had been replaced by a tea ceremony set. From the looks of the setup, Pein had only just begun preparing the tea.

"Pein, good afternoon," Sasori greeted, dipping his chin in a calculated gesture to show appropriate deference to his leader. It had taken him years perfect this action. He slipped his sandals off as he entered the room, something Pein and Konan required of every Akatsuki member entering this protected inner space of their hideout. His wooden limbs creaked softly.

"What are you doing?" Sasori asked once he had drawn near enough to inspect the tea set.

"I'm making tea," Pein replied without lifting his gaze. "Konan brought this set back with her when she returned from the Land of Tea."

"I see." Several snarky comments on the topic of bringing tea back from Tea-land surfaced in Sasori's mind but he withheld them. He knew how humour tended to bounce right off Pein.

"Do you have your mission report?" Pein said lightly as he deposited a scoop of tea leaves into the pot. He frowned and after a beat, added another half scoop.

"Here." Sasori pulled a scroll from one of his robe’s inner pockets.

Pein took it and cracked it open, scanning it briefly before his eyes landed on the final few sentences. Sasori winced inwardly, but chose to betray no emotion.

“What is this?” Pein said, sounding mildly perplexed. Sasori arranged his features to something a little more apologetic. Pein turned the scroll on him and pointed to the final few lines, which were scrawled haphazardly, spilling off the margins and partly smeared.

“We had to flee,” Sasori replied. “We were separated during a battle that neither of us had prepared for. Deidara wrote those last few… lines… ensuring me he was fine and that we’d meet here. I found the scroll but I was unable to locate him. He should be on his way back by now.”

Pein frowned. “Are you sure? It looks like the last line he wrote here was ‘meet at the crossroads’, not ‘hideout’.”

Sasori leaned forward. “No, it definitely says hideout. See, he usually adds these little wings to his characters…”

Squinting his eyes, Pein held the scroll up to his nose, then he pulled it away again. After a moment he sighed and tucked the scroll into a box on the floor nearby. He returned his attention to his tea, swirling the leaves and then pouring the water through a strainer into another small pot.

“I think it looks like ‘crossroads’, but no matter. Sit.”

Sasori sat at the table, lifting his tail aside. It attached to a spindle around his waist: if he wanted to, he could swivel it all the way to the front of his body. But that was inconvenient while clothed. Pein’s eyes tracked the tail.

“An interesting addition. How is it working out?”

With a noncommittal sound, Sasori brought the tail around to inspect it. It had been damaged during the battle, but not much. He would need to replace one or two of the panels where kunai had gouged the wood.

“Would you like some tea?” Pein offered.

Sasori stared.

“I do not need to consume tea.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Sasori huffed. “I _cannot_ consume tea,” he emphasized.

Shrugging, Pein poured himself a small cup. “Suit yourself.”

They sat there in silence, the seconds dragging on. Sasori listened for sounds at the door.

There was a _crash!_ then a loud yowl—but not at the door. The sound came from within the hideout.

“What was that!” Sasori exclaimed, jumping to his feet. Pein, however, was undisturbed.

“A new recruit,” he said, calmly sipping his tea.

Sasori waited, staring at the hallway that led into the hideout’s inner rooms, curious to see who was there, but still slightly on edge.

He heard them before he saw them:

“Mrraow!”

Spinning on Pein, Sasori placed his hands on his hips. “A cat?”

Pein was smirking. Sasori had to confess that he had never seen Pein smile before.

“Another bounty from the Land of Tea. Konan said she followed her home.”

“Oh?”

The newest member of Akatsuki padded into the main room. She was the fluffiest creature Sasori had ever seen, a tortoise-shell beauty with white-tipped paws. She stared up at Sasori with golden eyes, which gave him a bit of a jolt. He had known someone with perfect golden eyes once…

Convinced now that there was no threat, Sasori settled back down to the floor.

“Does it… have a name?”

“It’s a she,” Pein gently corrected. He took a sip of tea. “And no. Not yet.”

Sasori observed the creature. She stared right back. She seemed unnerved that Sasori did not smell alive and yet he moved and spoke.

He extended his hand. She hissed.

“Cats don’t like me anymore,” he mumbled to himself.

Pein made no comment.

The cat stared one moment longer, then stalked over to Pein’s bookcase. She looked up, calculating heights, angles and trajectories, then jumped, landing lightly on top of a loose stack of papers—which immediately shifted beneath her, sliding over the edge of the shelf and spilling in a blizzard of rustling sheets. The cat scrabbled for purchase on the midair papers but in vain: wide-eyed, limbs sprawling she fell with a thud to the ground.

Sasori couldn’t hold back his laughter at the cat’s mortified expression.

The falling papers suddenly froze, then returned themselves to the shelf like a shuffled pack of cards.

Konan was standing in the doorframe of one of the inner rooms. She leaned on the frame, arms crossed and yawning. She wore a simple lavender-colored shift made of a soft, silky material which hugged her curves. She had just risen from a nap.

“Is she bothering you?” she asked, addressing Pein. The cat pranced up to her and wound figure-8s around her ankles.

Pein shook his head. “No. She doesn’t seem to like Sasori, though.”

“Oh!” Konan’s honey-irised eyes lit up when she spotted Sasori. “Hello, Sasori-san,” she greeted. “Where’s Deidara-kun?”

“On the way,” Sasori replied curtly. He was annoyed that the boy was still not back. Why must he always be made to wait?

“How did the miss—”

Pein silenced Konan with a look.

“I see…” she grimaced.

Konan disappeared into her room for a moment, emerging with her Akatsuki cloak draped over her shoulders. She was barefoot.

“Sasori,” she said with a small smile, “I’m sure this little princess just needs to get used to you. She loves to play. Watch.”

Konan flicked her wrist and a paper flew off the top of the stack. Moving her fingers as if she were plucking an instrument, she folded the paper and let it settle to the floor in the shape of a large-eared mouse. The cat grew very still when she spotted it.

Twitch. The mouse timidly inched closer. Closer. Closer. The cat crouched, wiggled her rear-end, a coiled-up spring ready to—

The mouse skittered away just as the cat pounced. She chased after her prey, bottle brush tail streaking out behind her, then flipping up into a question mark when the mouse disappeared under the tea table. She stared intently into the darkened space, as if steeling her resolve to enter the great unknown.

Sasori watched with mild interest. His scorpion tail was resting on the floor now to preserve his chakra. He needed rest after what had frankly been an exhausting mission. Perhaps he could doze for a moment while Konan had her fun.

He had just closed his eyes when the sound of crinkling paper and the light pressure of two small paws on the surface of his tail called him back to consciousness.

He looked down. The paper mouse was pinned between the cat’s white-tipped paws and his scorpion tail. The cat looked up at him. He twitched the tail. She sprang back, torn between her desire to claim her prey and fear of this large, mobile _thing_ which may or may not be harbouring malicious intent. She went on the defensive, arching her back and bristling her tail.

Sasori, regarding her through half-closed eyes, waved the tail in her direction. She danced away. The tail retreated. She took a tentative step. The tail returned. She scampered away. Retreat. Curiosity and confidence growing by the second, the cat chased after it this time. Sasori waved it around her head; she followed it with her gaze, her long-whiskered face rotating around, exposing her delicate white chin.

The tail dipped low; she saw her chance and pounced! He let her pin the tail beneath her body weight. Cats like to win: you had to indulge them or they’d lose interest, Sasori remembered. He twitched the tail a little, convincingly acting the part of prey struggling to break free of the hunter’s grasp.

Konan laughed at this, her face lighting up. “You’re a natural! Have you kept cats before?”

Sasori looked up at her but did not answer her question. Instead he continued to swing his tail around for the cat, who now boldly pounced and batted it with her paws.

A light smile appeared on his face.

He guided her closer and closer to his lap, then once she was within arms’ reach, he extended his hand to her once more. She sniffed at it, nipped it, and shook her head when her teeth nicked into the hard wood. Then she rubbed her cheek against his hand and crawled into his lap.

“Oh.” Sasori had not been expecting that.

Konan crossed the room and knelt at the tea table beside Pein. Pein offered her a cup of tea, which she took, holding it in both hands while she beamed at Sasori.

“See?” she said. “I told you she just needed to get used to you.”

The cat was kneading Sasori’s robe, making a bed for herself in the hollow between his folded legs. A purr rose up in her throat.

“Oh…” Sasori murmured.

As the cat curled itself up in a tight ball and closed her eyes, Sasori let his palm rest on her back, which rose and fell with her every calm, slow breath.

Konan sipped her tea while Pein began to prepare another round. Sasori’s gaze flicked over the tiny teapot and he wondered why it wasn’t larger. Pein went through a significant amount of effort to scoop and measure the leaves, pour the water and filter the tea, and in the end the tiny pot only made two small cups. It seemed very inefficient. Perhaps the enjoyment was in the ritual. He was glad he didn’t drink tea. He couldn’t have stood to wait so long while Pein prepared the next cup.

The room lapsed into a tranquil silence, Pein and Konan sipping tea, Sasori gently stroking the cat’s back. She dozed softly and peacefully, completely at ease in Sasori’s presence.

*

_BAM!_ The door slammed open, startling the cat from Sasori’s lap. She looked ready to battle whoever was about to enter the hideout.

A dripping wet and utterly bedraggled Deidara stood framed in the doorway. He was missing his hat and one of his sleeves.

“Where have you been?!” he shouted at Sasori, striding across the room with his shoes on. He tore off his Akatsuki robe and threw it on the floor in a shower of raindrops. Beneath it he wore the mesh shirt and crop top that he’d picked up on their last mission to the Land of Fire. At sixteen, he was still just a slim, strip of a boy. “I’ve been waiting at the crossroads for _hours_ , mn!”

Pein eyed Sasori over his tea cup, but said nothing. Konan rested her elbow on the tea table. She would get involved in this only if it came to blows.

“That is _not_ what you wrote on the scroll,” Sasori admonished. He slowly stood, picking at the cat hair which now stood out prominently on his black robes. “It clearly says ‘hideout’. Pein?”

“I already filed it away, Sasori-san,” Pein said as he took another sip of tea.

Sasori’s eyes widened at this. “Are you taking his side?”

Deidara gaped at Sasori. Droplets of water fell from the ends of his hair to the floor. He shivered.

Pein said nothing.

“If he is,” Deidara grumbled, folding his arms in front of his chest, “it’s cuz he’s right. I thought we were meeting at the crossroads, mn.”

Konan stood. “Deidara-kun, let’s get you into some dry clothes. Are you injured?”

Deidara shook his head, then batted aside her hand as she reached for his arm. His angry glare bore into Sasori as he waited for an apology he knew would not be forthcoming. Unfazed, Konan bent down and picked his robe up from the floor.

“I was waiting so long I thought they killed you! Mn,” Deidara said, throwing down his hands.

“Tch, killed me? Those idiots?” Sasori retorted, carelessly waving a hand. “As you can see, I’m fine. Not dead. Sorry to disappoint. Next time, pay more attention to your handwriting.”

“What, while dodging kunai? I think I did pretty well, all things considered, mn!”

Deidara sneezed.

“Go put some clothes on,” Sasori muttered. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“Not until you apologize, mn!”

“For what?!”

“For leaving me!”

“I didn’t leave you!”

Pein stood abruptly.

“Enough! Deidara, go get changed. Sasori, why don’t you rest. Your chakra signature is weaker than usual. Lie down in one of the spare rooms.”

Sasori and Deidara stared at him, ready to fight.

“Mrroaw?”

The cat, in all of her fluffy glory, sat on the floor between Sasori and Deidara, gazing up at the blond.

Deidara’s eyes grew wide. He looked at Sasori. Deidara attempted to maintain his tough expression, but something else was bubbling beneath his angry mask. It was like watching a flower bloom. He pursed his lips, trying and failing to swallow the emotion building in his chest.

His control lasted all of three seconds before he was on his knees, hand outstretched, cooing like an auntie.

“Hello, gorgeous!” he crooned, radiating happiness like the summer sun. The cat warmed to him right away. She sniffed curiously at his hand mouths, but allowed him to stroke her head with the back of his hands. “You’re a beauty, aren’t you? Mn.”

“Mrr,” the little princess replied as she rubbed her cheeks against Deidara’s hands possessively.

Deidara sneezed again. The cat danced away.

Sasori bent down and scooped her up, cradling her like a baby.

“Go get changed, kid,” Sasori grumbled as the cat began to purr against his chest. He felt the vibrations in his heart core. “You’re no good to anyone if you come down with something.”

“Yes, Danna,” Deidara sighed. He extended his hand once more to scratch the cat between the ears. His clear blue eyes met Sasori’s amber-brown ones.

“I’m glad you’re alright, mn.”

Sasori turned and nudged Deidara in the direction of the back rooms with his shoulder. Deidara tripped forward and crossed the room, pausing to remove his shoes at the mouth of the corridor. He looked over his shoulder and shot Sasori a little grin.

Just before Deidara disappeared down the hall, Sasori mumbled, “Me too.”

“Mraow?”

Sasori frowned at the cat. She looked up at him, her piercing golden eyes somehow full of understanding.

“Nobody asked you, Kage-hime.”

**Author's Note:**

> do i need a note to explain the name "Kage-hime"? Kage = shadow, hime = princess... you get it, right? 😝


End file.
